McCance loving golfing return

Ross McCance enjoyed his best performance of the year as he partnered former tutor Kelvin Aitkens to a share of the lead at the Golfbreaks.com PGA Fourball Championship at Carden Park.

The pair, spurred on by an eagle at the tenth, raced home over the back nine to secure a 10-under-par round of 62 and take a share of the lead with PGA Cup player Lee Clarke (Beeston Fields) and his playing partner Jack Lynch (Tapton Park), and Iain Pyman (Waterfront) and Oliver Whiteley (Bramall Park).

The duo, from Chippenham Golf Centre, will now look to capitalise on their strong start during the final two days of the SkyCaddie & BMW-supported final.

McCance studied for a National Diploma in Sport under Aitkens at a college in Bristol, but his life was turned upside down and he was forced to take a five-year break from golf when his wife was diagnosed with cancer while they were still in their late teens.

Her recovery, however, prompted him to join the PGA’s foundation degree programme two years ago and get his golfing career back on track.

“I was working as a plasterer at the time, trying to make ends meet doing that,” McCance explained.

“It wasn’t an easy time, we always wanted to have kids but when she was diagnosed the doctors said that might never be possible.

“But when she recovered we got pregnant straight away, and with things looking up I thought it would be a good time to try to restart my golfing career.

“I’m very much still focused on the playing side of things, and having the opportunity to come here and play with Kelvin has been great.

“It’s nice for us to be up there at the leaderboard and it will definitely be a case of doing the same tomorrow.”

“He was always a very good golfer,” Aitkens added. “I’m not so sure he was keen on the academic side of things at the time though!”

“He was excellent out there today and really kept us on track.”

Clarke and Lynch were in the first group out and instantly set the fairways alight with a string of birdies strewn across their round.

The pair, friends since childhood, relished the opportunity to play in a national final together before Clarke heads to California to take his place in the Great Britain & Ireland PGA Cup team.

“I was joking on Twitter that it was going to be good to play with a PGA Cup player,” Lynch smiled.

“Obviously I wish him all the best going out there but we want to do as well as we can here first.”

Clarke added: “We’ve been friends for a long time and golf has been a big part of that – in fact we probably wouldn’t be friends if it wasn’t for the game.

“It’s great to come here and play in a national final with Jack, and we’ll definitely be going into tomorrow looking to build on what we’ve done today.”